Let’s Talk!: Be the best YOU can be.

Did you get a chance to see the Dove Campaign that’s doing the rounds? Well, if you’re still living under the rock on this one, here’s a quick refresher. The latest campaign by Dove comprises a video of how this forensic artist draws women, based on their own descriptions of themselves in the first round, and, based on the descriptions of them as given by other women, in the second round.

He never saw the women, himself.

Futile exercise, you think? Before you pass that judgment, take a moment on this. If you go through the video, you’ll find that the women when describing themselves to the artist behind a screen, make a mess of their own descriptions. They are clearly unhappy with their own beautiful features, and see themselves as too chubby or too long-nosed, or too sharp-jawed, or too freckled and the list goes on. But the other women – they see these women as they are: beautiful, with features unique to them and in their charming ways as they really are.

There is really a message underlying this: You have to see how beautiful you are. Beauty is not about the porcelain skin, or in blue eyes or straight hair, or in a size zero frame. Beauty is in you, in me, in her, in him, in everyone. Beauty is in the person, in the spirit, and in the ability to love, laugh and be genuine.

Yes, it is true that people are always going to judge you: not on what you do, but on what you look like.

People will always have a trillion things to say about you: not because of how “bad” you are, but because of their shortcomings. Words are destructive, so terribly destructive that they can leave you crushed under their power. We forget that words are not just a means of communication: but become a verbalization of our thoughts. We forget that words are not just callous utterances that one forgets like yesterday’s news, but are etched in the hearts and minds of the one hearing them. Words. See the power that the five letters have together? If you can’t say something nice, just don’t say anything. That doesn’t mean you should keep your own criticism or disappointment to yourself – speak it out – but don’t go out of your way to mess yourself up.

Be the best YOU can be.

And finally I leave you here with another video. A song called ‘ What Makes You Beautiful’ by One Direction.